Sushil Mantri's inspiration to start Mantri Developers: Amitabh Bachchan's movie Trishul

Sushil Mantri is a humble man, untouched and uncorrupted by his tremendous success with Mantri Developers, one of India's leading construction houses. If you are a Bangalorean, you probably have visited some of their apartment complexes and their malls, and each time you visit something built by Mantri Developers, all you do is take a break, soak in the beauty around you and gasp WOW.Here are some titbits from Sushil Mantri, the man behind the mammoth business and many beautiful buildings in India. Let's learn from him about what it takes to build and scale a business in India. There are many learnings that young entrepreneurs can take away from this man.

Childhood

I am from Pune. As a child, I was extremely disciplined and focussed. I worked hard. I always went about achieving whatever I wanted to at school. I was passionate about whatever I wanted to do even as a child. I don't remember one instance where I started something and left it midway or did not complete it with my best possible efforts. I think these traits come from my father. He was a businessman in textiles. I carry these qualities with me to this day

Inspiration for Mantri

In 1979, I watched Amitabh Bachchan's movie Trishul. Real estate was a big thing that time. I was so inspired that I wanted to make my mark in this industry. That movie, looking back, was very important in my journey. Soon after I passed my 10th class in 1978, I started helping my father in his textile business. On the side, we have started in investing in properties, we bought and sold many properties. My serious beginning in real estate happened in 1987 after almost 10 years since I first thought about making it big in real estate, when we finally decided to construct our own project in this land instead of buying and selling land. Focus was always important. We immediately sold our textile business to focus full-time on real estate. There was no turning back since. I was ambitious about this business form day 1.

On differentiators in business

I am sure all developers use the same cement, same steel and brick to construct. The only differentiator you have in this business is your hunger to think differently and do things differently. At Mantri, we always try to stay cutting edge. We travel all over the world, to bring the best learnings and experiences to our projects. We always look out to learn new ways of doing things. We brought the concepts of hi-tech homes and 360-degree homes from abroad.

Bumper happy moments

I was delighted when we completed the Mantri Woodlands projects. Our entire team was very happy with the quality we have achieved through this project. Post which, we constantly kept setting new benchmarks. We have received many awards for this project.

Later we constructed the Mantri Square Mall, which is the largest mall in India. It has received a great response from people in Bangalore. We are very proud of what we have achieved with that project.

We support green projects. We are committed to saving energy and power. We want to build the first zero waste project. We have received an awards from President of India last year for being a sustainable constructor. That made me very proud.

Brand Mantri

We have decided on that day 1 that we will stand for ethical practices. If you think about brands like Tata and Infosys, they leave you with a string sense of trust and security. I believe that adds a lot of indirect value to your brand. This helped us too. Our efforts have compounded daily for multiple years. However, we also put in a lot of efforts to elevate our grand value, the new logo has been very well received with the modern young audience. But trust and ethics are key for any brand

Drivers

I believe in PQRST. If you have PQRST, you will succeed. Punctuality, Quality, Reliability, Speed, and Trust. We inculcate this in our company in everyone, from top to bottom.

Many new and exciting projects keep me going. We are investing a lot in our village concept, where the entire complex is self-sufficient. We want to control the environment better within the project compound and deliver a great experience for our users. I am really excited about some of our upcoming projects in this space.

If you see Sushil Mantri, he still has the same enthusiasm for his business as he did on day 1, like all other great business leaders. We wish him and his team all the best as they forge ahead to build the new infrastructure for India.

Next time you walk in a Mantri building, pause for a second and do think about man behind Mantri, and his values that got him where he is today.

Website: http://www.mantri.in/